Experiences
HEAVENLY TWINS 26 - Singlehanded Circumnavigation:
Magazine: Shore Link [Round-up]
Date: 14 August 1986
A 53-year-old Canadian, Alan Butler, in his
26 foot Heavenly Twins catamaran Amon-Re,
has recently finished a complete
Circumnavigation of the world, singlehanded.
This makes the Heavenly Twins, according
to to D.H. (Nobby) Clarke, official yachting
compiler for the Guinness Book of Records,
the smallest catamaran ever to complete a
true circumnavigation.
Alan took delivery of his new Heavenly
Twins in 1979. and made his leisurely way
with family through the European canal
system down to the Mediterranean. They
cruised the Western Med. during 1980, a
mostly idyllic experience, but vividly
remember 42 hours spent lying hove to
in a force 10 Mistral en route to The
Balerics from Corsica. Alan comments
"We had already experienced a Force 8
gale in the English Channel, but after
this I knew that Amon-Re could go
anywhere".
![Shore Link [Round-up] - Singlehanded Circumnavigation](circumnavigation.jpg)
He departed from Gibraltar solo in
October 1980, reached Barbados four
full gales later, via Las Palmas, in
December, and continued on homewards
via the Panama canal, arriving at
Vancouver Island after a further 93
days at sea. Then after a spell of work,
to replenish funds, off in 1984 to Samoa,
in the South Pacific, Tonga, New Zealand,
Brisbane, Darwin, Mauritius and Durban,
with a return to Barbados on 3rd February
1986. Total miles logged 33,847.
Bad moments? The worst was probably in the
Indian Ocean whilst broad reaching
relatively comfortably in Force 7
S.Easterlies. An absolute monster of a
freak wave appeared suddenly, towering
over the boat as a sheer wall of roaring
water abeam. Any deep keeled boat would
have been rolled without question by
such a sea, with possibly disastrous
consequences, but Amon-Re's buoyant
hulls and shallow draft allowed her to
rise quickly to the sea, and surf
sideways with the top, breaking section.
This very top part did, however, manage
to give her a hefty thump in passing.
Damage? - "everything on the galley
counter ended up on the floor, including
a can of syrup. Of course the lid came
off it and it was mixed with knives
and forks and sugar and powdered milk.
A really good mess to clean up. A few
seconds later Amon-Re was going along
nicely again (Autohelm 3000 steering)
as if nothing had happened."
Alan remembers that in Durban, South
Africa, while preparing for the last
6,200 mile non-stop part of his voyage
back to Barbados, some of the local
sailing types "were flabbergasted
when they heard I was going to take
such a little catamaran of all things
around the Cape. Little did they realize
that she is a lot safer and much more
comfortable than most monohulls."
All in all this is a commendable
achievement for boat and sailor alike -
especially when the designer, Pat
Patterson (another round the World
catamariner), still refers to the boat
modestly as a safe family cruiser - in
spite of the fact that a few were already
known to have reached Australia without
mishap, even before this one.
But Pat says "I am a great believer in
understating the case. Words alone do not
often convince people. It is mostly through
talking to existing owners, that the
yachting public is slowly but certainly
coming to relize that a well designed
cruising catamaran can take them anywhere
they want in the world in greater comfort
and safety than a monohull of greater
overall length. Certainly there are a lot
of keelboat sailors out there who are
suffering monohull limitations quite
needlessly - I hope for their sakes, and
for those of their crews, that they
ultimatly get the message - their sailing
will be the more enjoyable for it. The
only complaint I hear after people make
the change is that I should have convinced
them earlier!!"
Beyond the pale:
Magazine: Dogwatch - with John Passmore
Date: June 1994
Stand back! This is in the nature of a confession.
I've been converted - but I'm still concerned
about the pink slacks and china horses...
LOOK, this is embarrassing. I've bought a
catamaran.
There, now it's out - and I feel rather as
if I've admitted to eating peas with my knife.
Of course, it's all to do with conditioning:
I grew up sailing a Folkboat out of Walton
Backwaters. We even used to look down on
Stellas because they had an extra plank and
another three 'inches' headroom. Caravans,
we called them.
As for catamarans - well, they were completely
beyond the pale. According to Father, catamarans
either turned over or broke up. They looked
like blocks of flats or giant insects. If
they were not sailed by crazed young men who
kept being rescued saying: "I'll get it
right next time. I know what's wrong now",
then it was over-anxious couples - she in
pink slacks and he wearing a white-topped
yachting cap with an anchor on the front.
And now, eight months after setting foot on a
cruising cat for the first time, I have one
of my own. She is a Heavenly Twins. She is
27ft overall and 13ft 9in in the beam. She
looks like a funny little duck sitting on
the water and we are calling her
Lottie Warren after my
great-grandfather's ship - he'd turn in his
grave if he knew.
Just how this all came about so suddenly
still has my head spinning. A week before
looking for the first time into a catamaran
cabin - and picking our jaws off the sole
and our eyebrows off the deckhead - we had
our hearts set on a 40ft steel cutter (steel
for safety and 40ft to live aboard).
When we found the only one we could afford
sailed like a bucket, we went to the Southampton
Boat Show in a state of despondency.
And that was where we met our friendly devil's
advocate: "Why don't you look at a catamaran?
They don't sink and there's bags of room." So
over the winter we drove hundreds of miles
looking at catamarans. We even drove to Lorient
(the bootful of wine had nothing to do with it).
Worst of all, we devoured books on catamarans.
Every one of them was written by an enthusiast,
gripped with a fervour that would do justice
to one of those people who come to the door
with pamphlets on the Day of Judgement.
In this case, the irrefutable tracts began
with: 'For thousands of years the multihull
has been the vessel of choice for transporting
people - and it still is.'
Then there was the photocopied magazine article
by the man who went round the world single-handed
in a Heavenly Twins and was hit by 'an absolute
monster of a freak wave.' He came through
unscathed, the little boat surfing sideways
with the breaking crest. The treacle fell off
the table, though.
Pretty soon, I found myself doodling with
comparative lists of advantages and drawbacks.
(Did being able to run before the trade at ten
knots without rolling the gunwales under,
outweigh the lesser windward ability in heavy
weather? Was the problem of being wind-rode
in a crowded anchorage really so great if you
could choose to sit upright on the beach?
And there was the test sail: 13 knots reaching
into Chichester Harbour. The most I ever got
out of my Rival, Largo, was 9.7 and that
was with everything straining in a gale and it
lasted just long enough for the log to register
the record before we went into the mother of all
broaches.
But the little cat surfed on and on. I couldn't
believe it. Nor, come to that, could the broker
- although, of course, he made a reasonable
stab at taking it in his stride.
All this helped a bit, but there was still the
problem of the pink slacks and the assumption
that the real reason people buy catamarans is
because they don't like all that 'keeling over'
and the china horses falling of the windowsill.
So we went to the Owner's Association Anual
Dinner and Dance. This was another eye-opener.
I had rather hoped that our fellow members would
be impressed with our ambitious cruising plans.
Not a bit of it - they all had plans of their
own which seemed to involve rather more mileage
and certainly more sunshine.
And when the main prize was awarded to a couple
who had circumnavigated, and accepted on
their behalf by another couple who had just
returned from three years in the Med, I became
rather subdued. Every time we changed places
(the men moved two to the left after each course),
people asked: "And when were you converted?"
It seems that multihull sailors spend so much
of their time justifying their boats to sceptical
- not to say derisive - monohull owners that they
develop something of a siege mentality. Not
that I have, of course. Dogwatch is nothing
if not a balanced view of the yachting scene.
But if you see a funny looking little cat doing
13 knots up the river, please be good enough
to get out of the way.
Heavenly Twins - Force 12 off Shetland:
Magazine: Yachting World
Author: John Passmore
Date: August 2000
A single-handed circuit of Britain didn't seem too ambitious
an undertaking in the height of the summer. But our Dogwatch
correspondent John Passmore had not counted on meeting with
some record-breaking weather off the north of Scotland.
These were not the records I was looking for as I set out to
sail single-handed non-stop around Britain and Ireland: the
lowest barometer reading for June since records began in 1871 -
966 millibars; the highest recorded wind speed for June, also
since records began - sustained 40-50 knots; gusts up to 96
knots. Finally, the third record to turn the whole project
into a sort of sick hat trick: the first-recorded capsize
of a Heavenly Twins catamaran.
It goes without saying that if I had known I would meet these sorts
of conditions, I would never have set out. If I had suspected I was
about to be engulfed in Scotland's own version of the 1987 'hurricane',
I would have sought shelter in the Shetland Islands.
But that is with hindsight. When I sailed out of the River Deben
ten days earlier it was with "reasonable confidence" as I told the
local television reporter.
As it happened, anyone who witnessed the start would probably not have
put money on me getting out of the river at all. In the euphoria of
waving to all my well-wishers, I put Lottie Warren aground on the
Deben Bar. Like all the best boats she shrugged off the incompentence
of her skipper and floated herself off as if to say: 'Let me take
care of this. You get on with the PR.'
For the next week she demonstrated to me why this Pat Patterson design
has been such a enduring success. Without the weight of a family of
four and all their belongings - without the hundred weight of Lego®
and 200 books - she flew. With a north-westerly Force 4 to 5, we were doing a
sustained 6.5 knots with bursts up to 8. And this is a 27ft boat
designed for maximum accommodation.
The accommodation was amazing. I sat at the saloon table with my
laptop computer in front of me, enthusing about the sensation of
sitting on a pebble which some youthful giant has sent skimming
across the surface of the water. Then, since all this
was taking place on an even keel, I would leave the computer sitting flat
on the table and connect it to the mobile phone with the aerial on
the top of the mast and fire off reports by e-mail to the
Daily Telegraph.
It was whilst I was doing this that, automatically, I received one from
Mike Golding as he nursed a damaged Team Group 4 through a vicious,
low depression in the Europe 1 New Man single handed Transactlantic Race.
Conditions, said Mike, were atrocious - this from a man who had sailed
three times round Cape Horn the wrong way.
The unusual low featured again on the long range forecast after the
0535 shipping bulletin on the Saturday morning. It would bring gales
to north west Scotland on Monday or Tuesday.
On Monday or Tuesday, I planned to be off north-west Scotland. It
was fortunate that I was not in a race. All I had to do was get back
by the beginning of July for the church fete, the cat's kittens and
a weekend in Paris.
And so, when I reached the top of the Shetland Islands, I stopped.
I sorted out my long warps, re-read Pat Patterson on the management
of catamarans in gales and waited to see which quadrant of the west
the unpleasantness would be coming from.
If there was to be any north in it, I would duck back down the East
Coast. Anything else would see me running off towards Norway.
After 24 hours during which every fishing boat in the Shetlands
fleet came to see whether I wanted to be salvaged, the Coastguard
shipping forecast gave the definitive south-westerly Force 9.
Ideal, I thought, I could get some westing in before it arrived.
It was while I was on the way that I heard my last Coastguard broadcast
which had now become: "South-westerly Storm Force 10-soon."
Suddenly time seemed to stop as the significance of that cheerful
Scottish voice came crashing down on top of me. I had never been
in a Force 10. What I did know was that I had no business to be in
one. I knew that very soon I would be in a survival situation and
everything depended on how well I managed my boat. If I had wanted
to end my long-distance sailing career with a flourish, I was
certainly getting the opportunity.
The storm arrived with unhurried deliberation. When porgress to
windward started to put a strain on the boat, I hove to. This is
stage one on the guru Patterson's storm management manual.
Since I know that we would soon reach stage two, I went straight
into it while the wind was only 25 knots and I could walk around
the deck without being blown off.
I organised 100m of 14mm anchor warp in a bight from the starboard bow
to starboard stern. In the middle of this bight there was attached
25 metres of 16mm plaited warp with a car tyre on the end. Then I
handed all sail and trussed up the main like a mummy.
Lottie settled immediately broadside to the seas and began to
bob up and down like a duck.
Now monohull sailors may be horrified at the idea of lying beam-on
to breaking seas but they have deep keels which bite into the still
water below the surface and 'trip-up' the boat as the moving crest
presses on the hull. That is how monohulls get rolled.
A catamaran behaves like a raft and is simply swept sideways but stays
upright.
And as the wind increased that is exactly what happened. We lay like
this for 24 hours and it worked. Every 20 minutes or so I would go
on deck to check for chafe and shipping.
I wore, next to the skin, a Montane Interact thermal suite and on
top of that Helly Hansens Auckland gear. I cannot praise either
high enough. Best of all, I had Dubarry's Goretex boots which I had
been wearing for 24 hours a day, for over ten days - only needing
to change my socks once.
Gradually the windspeed crept up and up. Pat Patterson offers a
third and final stage in the book. This is for conditions of Force
10 and above. The point at which to make the change when the impact
of the waves from abeam comes what he calls 'shocklike'.
Once or twice, I suspected we had received such impacts - a loud
bang, small items being thrown across the cabin. Then in the space
of five minute, it happened three times - culminating in the pot
of spare light bulbs being shot across the 14ft of cabin as if fired
from a catapult.
Very carefully, slithering about the deck on my belly to reduce
windage, I transferred the bow line to the port stern.
Obediently Lottie swung to present her stern to the seas. I
switched on the autopilot again and she set off north-north-east
at six knots. It was of course, the wrong direction and something
of a disappointment after the two knots drift I had logged while we
lay beam-on. But what's that matter compared with the sensation
of calm now we were going with the storm instead of trying to resist
it.
For half an hour I watched the seas and compass. The boat was sailing
fast and straight under bare pole. I went below for a biscuit
and a glass of pink grapefruit juice.
It would have been helpful at this point to have had another forecast.
The barometer had stopped falling but I was appalled to see it
reading 969 - I had never seen it that low before. If depression
was tracking north-east, then presumably the wind must veer at some
point.
But I was not getting forecasts. When I set out, I reasoned that I
had four sources of information: Coastguard on VHF - now out of
range, Navtext - the aerial connection had shaken loose and the
motion was such that for attempts to re-make it had all ended in failure.
I had a radio cassette player but in this kind of weather the Aerogen
wind generators set up such an electronic howl that I could'nt hear
a word.
Finally I had been presented with a Freeplay radio. I was thrilled
with this. There was something wonderfully wholesome about earning
your episode of The Archers by grinding a handle for 60 turns.
Yet what possesses anyone to manufacture an expensive radio with wonderful
tone and AM and FM - not to mention two short-wave bands - then not
include long wave?
I cannot say if things would have been different I had known the windshift
was imminent. Certainly I imagined that when it came I would have half
an hour before the difference in the pattern would be significant.
I set the kitchen timer for 20 minutes, backed it up with the loudest
alarm clock out of the Casio catalogue and lay down to sleep.
Later the helicopter pilot was to tell me that windspeeds at this level,
the wave pattern would change within five to ten minutes.
All I know of it was when I awoke to the insistent hiss of rushing water as
Lottie - still steering her original wind direction - began her
broach. I saw the bulkhead start a cartwheel. Small items began to
cascade from cave lockers.
"Oh," I said, "She's going over."
I was, at the time, extremely calm. I suspect this was because up until
now everything had gone according to plan. Somehow I imagined this was
just another development and I know what I had to do.
First the EPIRB: it was already flashing as I took it from it's bracket
in the cockpit and brought it into the starboard hull, tied the line to
the toilet pump and pushed it out of the head window.
Next the liferaft. This was when I first began to get frightened. It was
in a valise and stowed in the starboard aft cabin. I had thought about
tying off the static line but worried that if it should shift and fall
off the bunk, the thing would inflate. Also, in fog, I might want
to keep it in the cockpit.
Now I did need it, I looked into the aft cabin and saw the hatch wide open.
I only hoped the liferaft had not simply dropped out and gone spiralling
down to the seabed complete with line. I dived under the water and began
to search. I found the dinghy floating in it's bag. I found my beloved
sextant and the boards I had made for blocking up smashed windows and
the brand new Autohelm which Raytheon had lent me in case I should
need it.
But the liferaft? No. In the time I could hold my breath, I just could
not find it; and besides, it seemed logical that it had indeed dropped
out of the hatch.
This meant the best option was to stay inside the hull. Thinking of
Tony Bullimore, I wedged myself clear of the water and tried to think
of anything else I could do. I was surrounded by apples. I picked
one and bit into it. It turned out to be an orange.
I have no idea how long I was in there because after a while sensations
took a while to register. One of them was that I was now in the water
not because I had move, but because the boat had begun to settle. Then
I realised that I was breathing very fast. Of course, I was
using up the oxygen in this confined space. I made plans to get out.
Now which way should I turn when I got out of the hatch?
My befuddled brain just could'nt handle this one at all. In the end
I knew I had to go for it while there was still enough good air
around to make a deep breath worthwhile.
I think I even told myself "Go!" and I was out, losing my lovely
boots instantly, dropping the flare canister straight away - but
popping up next to the rudder. In no time at all I was standing on
the bottom of the bridgedeck, holding onto the starboard keel.
And there I knew I had to stay.
When the first really big wave hit me, swept my feet from under me and
left me in the middle of a breaking crest holding on by my fingertips, I
knew I was in real trouble. In all the survival manuals i have ever
read it tels you that the single most powerful tool in your possession
is your mind. You must never, ever-even for the tiniest moment -
remotely consider the smallest possibility of not coming through alive.
This was kind of difficult at the time - partly because during that last
morning I had been taking photographs in the cockpit and kept wondering
why the flash was going off. But is was not the camera flashing. It
was the EPIRB. I had sat on it and set it off.
Reasoning that it had only been activated for a few seconds, I switched
it off again and broadcast a 'false alarm' message on VHF. Now it was
transmiiting in earnest, I wondered obliquely whether there was someone
down in Falmouth saying: "Oh that's just the false alarm, don't worry
about that one."
But that, as I say, was not to be considered. Instead I concentrated,
wave by wave, second by second on holding on, thinking of Tamsin and
the children and shouting at the sky: "I am not going to die, I am
coming home!".
The estimate is that I was in the water - both in the hull and on top
of it - for between two and three hours. When the Coastguard helicopter
arrived, it took maybe another ten minutes to find a calm enough slot to
come down below the 30m maximum wave height and get me off. That seemed
like the longest time.
But once a magnificent and very brave man called Peter Mesney had
swung down on his line and literally plucked me to safety, I was
hardly able to speak and shaking uncontrallably. They flew me to
the Murchison oil platform and treated me for hypothermia.
It seems unreal as I sit here writing this looking out over the garden
to a tranquil River Deben. Litle Theo points to the Montane suit on
the line and says: "Daddy was upside-down in that."
Meanwhile, the telephone keeps ringing and the postscript continues
to be updated. Premium Liferaft Services say the EPIRB was accurate
to within 100 metres only because the Americans have now unscrambled
the GPS signal. Also, they beleive the liferaft is still aboard. It
was not designed to sink at all but to float so that it can be fitted
to a hydrostatic release.
Maybe if i had taken a sea survival course, I would know things like
this.
Shetland Coastguard ring to say an anchor handling vessel has located
Lottie Warren but must remain on station, what do I want to do
about this?
I call Pantaenius (I would suggest the only appropriate insurance
company for the single-hander) and say I had been planning to sell
the boat anyway and would be happy to agree a total loss.
But the oil companies do not want a wreck floating about their rigs -
or, indeed, dragging around the seabed among their anchors. They
will lift her onto the Thistle platform.
It means I may get back my prized 50th birthday watch from the chart
table. Maybe I will be able to return the Automhelm after all.
It all seems like an amazing bonus. Because it is only 72 hours since there
was only one thing I wanted off that boat - me.
Catamaran for Blue Water Sailing:
Magazine: Practical Boat Owner
Author: Pat Patterson
Date: July 1980 (No 163)
Pat Patterson describes some experiences
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
The benefit of hindsight:
Magazine: Yachting World
Author: John Passmore
Date: September 2000
The benefit of hindsight
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
Others (Still to be categorised):
good_heavens.pdf
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
self_steering.pdf
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
ocean_winds.pdf
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
on_yer_bike.pdf
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
blue_water_cat.pdf
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
catena_sinking.pdf
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
ht36.pdf
(download by right clicking, and selecting "Save Target As")
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